Don't treat your kids like shit...

It's been a while since I've had much to say, but right now I have stuff I need to get off my chest.

First is about this friend, we'll call her AJ.

AJ has two kids, one is a somewhat special needs kid, meaning he has Asbergers. I've got another friend who has a son with the same condition, so I'm rather familiar with it from talking to Kat and being around Boy.  Anyway, AJ tends to coddle the younger Asbergers kid, she gives in to everything, doesn't discipline very often, and when she does it's very minor compared to her other kid whom she yells at and practically bludgeons to death emotionally and psychologically. She'll yell at her older kid no matter what he does.  If he takes a pen to school or uses a sheet of paper he gets yelled at.

I'll admit, I used to be like that with Bug, but I learned that it wasn't the right way to be, so I changed.  AJ needs to change or her kids are going to end up so maladjusted it's not even funny.

She also says that her youngest has pica, a condition that causes them to eat anything they find on the floor, well, all the times he's been here he not once ate anything off my floor.  And let me tell you, my floors are less then clean! Bug has left beads laying on the floor, the cats will play with things and send them in all directions never to be seen again until I clean up or trip over it.

The other day I was with her after her eldest was home from school. She went on and on about her health issues without any restraint at all right in his face. I swear, she was trying to guilt trip him or something.  After a few minutes of this he changed the subject. I looked at her and told her she needed to chill out, that if she watched his body language she'd see that he was don't listening. She says that he steels, lies, breaks things and is mean spirited. He also has been having a lot of accidents in his pants at school when the teacher yells at him.  That should be a dead giveaway right there that something's wrong, but she's not seeing it, neither is her husband.

I'm worried for the kids, I really am, but it's not my place to step in and tell her how to parent, nor is it my place to step in and talk to her kids for her.  AJ told me that her kids are in therapy but she's in the room with them when they talk to their therapist.  I think they need to be able to talk to the therapist in private, have a change to voice how they feel without her there, without her influence. It's important for kids to feel safe and feel that they can trust the adults that are taking care of them.  Without that trust there's going to be nothing but fear and animosity, that's the last thing I want to see happen to her kids.  She mentioned once that the therapist offered to have the eldest removed from the house and put into a home, she had refused to have that done, yet all the does is complain about the poor kid and torment him emotionally and psychologically. Granted, there may be something wrong with the kid, but what if it's all AJ's doing that he is the way he is?

AJ seems to have a lot going on with her as well, but I'm starting to think that some of it might just be in her head. She says that she has fibro like I do, as well as a supposed upper broken back. If someone has a broken upper back, don't they generally have trouble walking or can't walk at all?  Unless I'm misinformed about broken backs. She says that her legs go numb.  Personally I think that a lot of it has to do with her diet, as well as with all the damned meds she's on.  She takes percocet like it's candy, she takes at least ten different medications a day, several times a day. There are so many things that make me seriously question the validity as well as the reality of half of her health issues.

I'm in a lot of pain almost all the time, yet I get out of bed on time every day, get Bug ready for school, make breakfast and get her lunch packed, drive her to school.  Granted, I'm behind on the cleaning, but that's something I'm trying to work on with the pain in my lower back. But we're not here to talk about me, we're talking about AJ.

Maybe I'm being too judgmental...maybe I'm not seeing the truth of it all. I am only seeing them for only a few hours at a time, but from what I see...things aren't good at all.

AJ had told me that her parents doted on the first kid, gave him everything, that he could do no wrong.  Then the second kid came into the picture and her parents refused to even acknowledge the kid until he was three months or three years old I think she said, can't remember which. I'm sorry, but if my mother did that to Bug I'd have walked away from her and cut all ties completely.  She had told me once that sometimes she wished that the second kid was "normal" like her first kid.  I think that a lot of what she's been doing is tearing her oldest down and making him so damned emotionless and uncaring that he's likely to stay that way for the rest of his life.  How can someone treat their kids like that?

She told me that the kids really dislike, almost hate her mother and don't want to be with her at all. Yet today she told me that they wanted to go spend time with their grandmother.

Last night I told her we'd postpone dinner & game night because of how bad off she was feeling. When I saw her she didn't seem that bad off, aside from a migraine and having tests done. Which I can understand are rough.  When I showed her son how to rub her back when she leans over because she's not feeling good she should have thanked him for trying to help her to feel better.  Instead she completely ignored his good actions and laid into him for something so damned trivial that it made me question everything she's told me about the kids mental well being.

I've been questioning everything she says lately, especially after she tried to convince me that the youngest ate something off the floor and covered his ears cause it was "too loud inside his head". I'm sorry, I was right there and the kid did no such thing.  She tried to say that the reason I didn't see it was because I wasn't paying attention.  Sorry, honey, but I was watching the kids too since all you were doing was drinking a beer and not paying much attention to your own kids.

Enough about AJ, if I keep going my brains going to start oozing out of my ears or some crazy shit like that.

So, now on to the next subject of tonight...my mother...yup, she did it again, she pissed me off and upset Bug to tears.  She started doing to Bug the exact same thing we had been talking about AJ doing to her kids...seriously, it was horrible!

I guess that it's for now...time to go stir the chicken soup and get ready to add in the gluten free orzo...yum.

Until next time...

< /RANT >